‘There is no one way to prepare sermons’, writes John Stott in I believe in preaching. ‘Every preacher has to work out his own method, which suits his temperament and situation.’ Nevetheless, there are skills that can be learned and habits that can be acquired. The following outline of the relevant chapter (6) in Stott’s book is taken largely from Xenos.
Of course, there must be a text, ‘for we are not speculators, but expositors’. …
Expository preaching must remain faithful to the text of Scripture. There are two ways, says John Stott, in which the expositor might depart from his text: forgetfulness and disloyalty.
G. Campbell Morgan, himself a fine expositor, noted of Benjamin Jowett, Master of Balliol College Oxford that he
declared that it was his habit to write his sermons, and then choose a text as a peg on which to hang them. I am quite free to say…that the study of his sermons will reveal the accuracy of his statement, and show the peril of the method.…
Timothy Dudley-Smith, in his fine biography of John Stott, draws some striking parallels between John Stott and Charles Simeon (1759-1836).
…‘Both were privileged sons of comparatively affluent parents, educated at public schools, undergraduates at Cambridge. They shared a transforming experience of conversion to Christ, early and and severe trials and testing, and virtually a lifetime’s ministry in a single church. Each cultivated habits well beyond the norm for early rising, disciplined prayer and the study of Scripture.
The New Testament (writes John Stott) sounds a note of victory that is sadly muted in many parts of the church today. The victory is God’s and he has achieved it through Jesus Christ; more specifically, through the cross of Christ (1 Cor 15:57; 2 Cor 2:14; Col 2:15; Rom 8:37; Rev 3:21; 5:5; 12:11).
What seemed like the defeat of goodness by evil was, in fact, the defeat of evil by goodness. The victim is the victor. …
We have been considering four of the principal New Testament images of salvation – propitiation, redemption, justification and reconciliation. These are derived from the shrine, the market, the lawcourt and the home respectively. Because they draw on different life situations, they cannot be perfectly integrated with one another.
However, certain themes emerge:-
1. Each highlights a different aspect of human need – wrath, captivity, guilt and alienation respectively.
2. All emphasise God’s saving initiative. He propitiated his own wrath, redeemed us from our bondage, declared us righteous, and reconciled us to himself. …
One of several images of salvation used in Scripture is that of reconciliation.
In this image, we leave the temple precincts, slave-markets and lawcourts, and come home to our family and friends.
Reconciliation is the answer to alienation, and to all who feel alienated reconciliation sounds like the good news that it is.
Reconciliation begins with a restored relationship with God, Rom 5:9-11 (note the parallel in this passage between reconciliation and justification). The idea is closely linked with those of ‘adoption’ (Jn 1:12f; 1 Jn 3:1-10) and ‘access’ (Rom 5:1f; Eph 2:17f; 1 Pet 3:18; Heb 10:19-22).…
Whereas the imagery of propitiation is that of the temple court, the imagery of redemption is that of the market-place. The basic meaning of ‘to redeem’ is to buy or buy back, whether as a purchase or as a ransom. Strongly implied is the plight from which we needed to be ransomed.…
How did the cross of Christ achieve its purpose? In what ways did his death and resurrection usher in ‘the day of salvation’ (2 Cor 6:2)?
Just as several pictures, or metaphors, are needed to fill out the meaning of ‘church’ (bride, temple, household, and so on), so several are required to illustrate the salvation that Christ achieved. Chief among these are the terms ‘propitiation’, ‘redemption’, ‘justification’, and ‘reconciliation’. It is important to realise that these images are complementary to one another, for underlying them all is ‘the truth that God in Christ has borne our sin and died our death to set us free from sin’. …
How can we, who are so deeply unholy and unrighteous, be reconciled with God, who is gloriously holy and righteous? How can God express simultaneously his holiness in judgment and his love in pardon?
The astonishing, yet scriptural, answer, is, in the words of Cranfield, that
…‘God, because in his mercy he willed to forgive sinful men, and, being truly merciful, willed to forgive them righteously, that is, without in any way condoning their sin, purposed to direct against his own very self in the person of his Son the full weight of that righteous wrath which they deserved.’
The notions of ‘satisfaction’ and ‘substitution’ in relation to atonement are often seen as crude and primitive. Indeed, the idea that God would need to be appeased by the cruel sacrifice of his Son is frequently thought to be inconsistent with the character and teaching of Jesus himself.
But, in fact, such ideas, carefully stated, lie at the heart of the church’s worship and witness. Cranmer, for example, at the beginning of his Prayer of Consecration in 1549 described Jesus as having made on the cross, by his ‘one oblation of himself once offered’, ‘a full, perfect, and sufficient sacrifice, oblation, and satisfaction for the sins of the whole world’.…
